Meditation is a Practice

(mouse clicking) (soft music) Headspace Studios. (gentle music) Greetings, my name is Kessonga, and I welcome you this Monday to Radio Headspace. Something that we all have in common, regardless of race, religion, culture, country, gender, et cetera, is that at some point or more likely multiple points in our lives, we will be faced with some sort of hardship. It's only natural. What has served me very well during these moments of hardship is leaning on my practice and on my intentions in order to find the most appropriate solution. So I often use the analogy of sports when talking about life and I love to use this analogy, because I like to think of life as a sport. So with any sport, no matter what it is, baseball, basketball, tennis, whatever the sport, in order to get better, in order to improve at that sport, you have to do what? Practice. Well, it's the same in life, the formal meditation, the sitting and being present with your focal point, noticing the distractions, gently letting them go. That's the practice. So when you are playing the game of life, your ability to maintain this level of awareness is already a part of you. It's like that muscle memory, and it's this awareness that's going to help you during those moments of hardship or increased stress. Your practice will sort of guide you into making the most wise and appropriate decisions or choices for that moment. The next thing I will mention in regards to finding solutions during those difficult moments in life is allowing yourself to set your intentions in life and listening to and using them as a focal point. I always thought I wanted to become a physician. I think when I was a kid, I said it out loud one day, and my parents heard me, and so it was set. Kessonga's going to become a physician. And I was initially fine with it. I really was fascinated with medicine. I knew I just wanted to heal people, so that was actually my true intention. So even though I initially thought it was for me to be a physician, I remember distinctly when I was turned on to acupuncture. It was my junior year in undergrad and a gentleman came to lecture about holistic medicine in general, and acupuncture was one of those subtopics. I was immediately hooked. I knew right then and there that acupuncture was how I wanted to heal people. But I had declared being a physician already, and for years, my parents told everyone I would be a physician. I was so torn, I didn't know what to do. And so no, I didn't initially follow that sign that told me to study acupuncture, and I was actually miserable for quite some time trying to force myself into becoming a physician. When I finally listened to my intuition, everything kind of fell into place. That first day of grad school for acupuncture was...